This is why this will continue without any hope of change.
Consider it as a prisoners' dilemma game. As long as all politicians act frugally and choose to enact policies in the general interests of all citizens (what Buchanan refers to as the "generality principle"), then spending and taxes are jointly considered based on specific users and we end up in the upper left-hand corner of the game cube below (blue). But knowing that as long as all other politicians choose thrift Politician A can be made better off by choosing squander (i.e., pork barrel spending, repaying special interests, shifting costs into the future etc.), every politician has an incentive to defect and we consequently end up in the lower right-hand corner of the game (red).
No politician has an incentive to reduce spending or promote more efficient policies. Taxes were at one time a control against squandering, but given that voters appear inured to public debt, there seems to be no governor preventing the collapse that Holtz-Eakin warns against.
Let's also not forget that it's not the debt that's the problem, but instead the resources that are redirected from the private to the public sector. Just consider all the talent in Washington, DC that could be utilized elsewhere. More computers, iPods, newer forms of communication and transportation and social mobility, etc. We have less other stuff due to the increase in resources directed to the public sector, and there appears to be no incentive to reverse that trend.
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